facial recognition

If a smart home is truly smart, it should know who’s inside it. That’s the argument Netatmo makes with its new Welcome camera, promising Dropcam-style streaming video but combined with facial-recognition. At $199 it matches Nest Cam’s sticker, but without the need to cough up for the cloud if you want to look back through captured footage, and Netatmo says its person-spotting skills should cut the number of false-alarms down, too. I put on my most welcoming expression to see if the learning camera would find me memorable.

Facebook has developed the next level of facial recognition software that is so clever, it can identify you even if your face is obscured. If you were paranoid about being auto-tagged in pictures before, Facebook's new recognition capabilities won't do anything to allay those fears. This new algorithm removes any residual layers of privacy a user would have from photographing themselves from the neck down, or covering their face. The AI behind the development seems human-like its ability to identify a friend from the back of their head.

Facebook Moments' smart people-spotting AI won't fly in Europe, with the smartphone app not being released until users can opt-out of facial recognition. The software, launched earlier this month for iOS and Android devices, promises to fill in the gaps in your galleries by combining pictures and video taken by multiple people all attending the same event. To do that, Moments uses its increasingly accurate face-recognition tech, and it's the legality of that which has the app's European launch on hold.

Facebook has launched a new photo management app, Moments, intended to privately gather up shared shots from events. Figuring that plenty of people take lots of photos at parties, family gatherings, and other social occasions, but never share them with other participants or, indeed, see the pictures their friends took on their phones, the iPhone and Android app uses a combination of facial recognition and timestamps to figure out what combined gallery needs to be created.

It's not all that often that technology "firsts" come out of China, but here is an interesting one. A technology company has built the world's first ATM to rely on facial recognition technology for security. The machine is described as only letting users withdraw money from their accounts if a scan of their face matches with the data stored on their bank card. It's certainly a unique twist on preventing banking fraud, but it's still far from being proven foolproof.

By now nearly every netizen has heard of How Old Do I Look, Microsoft's facial recognition website that has gone viral over the last few days. Many users have gotten laughs, or been disappointed, over just how inaccurate the guesses are sometimes. But what isn't being talked about is what's actually happening to the photos that users upload. While the website has the message "We don't keep the photo" placed front and center, the language used in the terms of service have hints of a different meaning.

Microsoft has a facial recognition tool called 'How Old' that aims to guess your age based on a picture of your face. It's a fun little novelty...or it would be if it were accurate. Rather, many users find the guesses to be inaccurate, sometimes very much so, and as a result the Internet has done what the Internet often does: taken to mockery. A bunch of screenshots have appeared on Twitter (and elsewhere) showing faces and the ages estimated, and in some cases faces that aren't even human.

Facial recognition software is ubiquitous. From being auto-tagged by facebook to being added to a database of images, we can't control what happens to our likeness once it gets online. These days more data is being extracted from each of our online interactions. Tracking cookies and search history give companies a clear view of your Internet footprint. Most precious of all is your own face. Enter AVG's new concept invisibility glasses which were presented at in Barcelona for the MWC 2015. Once you put them on, you're rendered instantly invisible to facial recognition software.

Netatmo is set to unveil a new product at CES 2015 that it claims is the first smart home camera that its has new face recognition technology built-in. The new camera is called the Netatmo Welcome smart home camera and it has technology inside that allows it to recognize each member of your family. The idea is that the camera can send the names of people in your home to your smartphone.

We often fancy technology and devices as great addons to our lives, but for some minorities, they can also be great enablers. Trying to harness the latest in smartphone technology, software development, and psychology, Samsung developed its new Look At Me app to help train children with autism make eye contact, recognize facial expressions and emotions, and ultimately help them develop better socials skills and bring them closer to family and friends. Best of all, to the kid, it's all just a game.